MARCH 17

OUR PERSONAL PROMISES

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John 14:26

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”

John 6:63

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”

1 Peter 3:18

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,”

Matthew 3:11

“I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

John 3:8

“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Mark 13:11

“But when they arrest you and deliver you up, do not worry beforehand, or premeditate what you will speak. But whatever is given you in that hour, speak that; for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.”

Isaiah 61:1-3

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor;  He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,  and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;  to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,  and the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn,  to console those who mourn in Zion,  to give them beauty for ashes,  the oil of joy for mourning,  the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;  that they may be called trees of righteousness,  the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

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Our book for this month  is called “100 NAMES OF GOD”  written by Christopher D. Hudson.  Each day we’ll take one Hebrew name for God as given in the Bible to study and relate to.

PNEUMA

SPIRIT

John 4:24

“God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

After the fundamental question of life, “Does God exist?” comes the closely related question, “If there is a God what is God like?”

In a conversation with an unnamed Samaritan woman, Jesus answered the question this way:  “God is spirit.”  In other words, God is essentially immaterial and invisible.  As spirit, God isn’t confined to a certain temple or shrine.  He’s everywhere.  He fills the universe.  You can meet Him anywhere.

The Biblical words for SPIRIT  are the Old Testament Hebrew word RUWACH – variously translated as “wind, breath, mind, air, or spirit”  — and the New Testament Greek word PNEUMA –typically translated as “power, wind, breath, state of mind, ghost.   The ideas in the translated groups of words are  more closely connected than we might assume at first glance.

The Bible uses RUWACH in its second verse – Genesis 1:2, where we see the Spirit of God “hovering over the waters” of the yet-unfinished creation.   A short time later, in  Genesis 6:17, RUWACH is translated as “breath of life.”  There can be no life without breath, no life without RUWACH.  Later, Job 37:21 and Psalm 148:8 use RUWACH to signify a physical wind.  In the New Testament Jesus compares the saving work of the Holy Spirit to the blowing wind in John 3:8.

The bad news of the gospel is that sin renders us spiritually dead and incapable OF RELATING TO THE GOD WHO IS SPIRIT  The good news of the gospel is that the God who is spirit came into the world in the person of Jesus Christ.  He did this to show us what He is like and also to make us spiritually alive by His grace, through our faith in Christ.  The only way to become spiritually alive is to know God and respond to Him. 

Knowing God transcends the physical realm.  Our communion with God can be enhanced by material realities and blessings, but it doesn’t REQUIRE external, earthly things.  We relate to Him spirit -to-spirit.

When the God who is spirit makes us spiritually alive in Christ, we are able to live in a satisfying spiritual relationship with Him.

How is the untamable, powerful wind and the power of God similar?

PRAYER

Pneuma, Holy Spirit, As I live in my physical body in this material world, please teach me how to worship You “in  the Spirit and in truth.”  Amen

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